Hard as it to imagine, a recent government report was so ridiculously hysterical that even the New York Times noticed. The President’s Cancer Panel’s released a report entitled “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk,” which led to this Times’ headline:
U.S. Panel Criticized as Overstating Cancer Risks.
The verb “overstating” doesn’t go half far enough, but coming from theTimes that’s still pretty damning. The report was a collection of conjecture, unrelated factoids and, more than anything, a shrill call for more: more government, more studies and, of course, more money. Even the American Cancer Society found it a bit over the top. From the Times:
Dr. Michael Thun, an epidemiologist from the cancer society, said in an online statement that the report was “unbalanced by its implication that pollution is the major cause of cancer,” and had presented an unproven theory — that environmentally caused cases are grossly underestimated — as if it were a fact.
While we may applaud the Times for publishing both sides of this story, one wonders why they didn’t dig just a little deeper. It really doesn’t take a lot of work to demonstrate just how goofy the Cancer Panel’s report is. Might an enterprising reporter not wish to question this claim, for example:
Nearly 80,000 chemicals are in use in the United States, and yet only a few hundred have been tested for safety, the report notes.
Seems an odd claim, when each and every chemical used in the workplace, by law, has to be accompanied by a Material Safety Data Sheet which, you will note, actually has the word “safety” in it.
Maybe the Cancer Panel isn’t referring to “testing for safety” per se, but more in-depth studies with respect to potential toxic and carcinogenic effects? In that case, is it reasonable to assume that all 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States are used in such significant quantities that they could have a stealthy widespread effect on the environment such that MSDS information just isn’t good enough?
Five minutes of research at the EPA website provides the answer: no, they’re not. According to the EPA, there are about 3,000 High Production Volume chemicals used in the nation that could, emphasize could, present health or environmental risks. The Agency has gathered extensive data, largely through industry efforts, on about 2,200 of these chemicals and it continues to put more data together on the rest.
Ergo, it’s silly to assert that there is a need to gather reams of data on each of the 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States when about 96 per cent of them are not used in significant quantities and it’s a fabrication to claim that we don’t have safety data on them in any case. We have mountains of safety data on those 80,000 chemicals. Furthermore, as far as the four per cent of chemicals that are used in substantial quantities, we have mountains of data piled up to the stratosphere for most of those.
The two academic types who put the Cancer Panel’s report together, as well as the Times, seem blissfully unaware that we already have a few laws and regulations in place that concern themselves with the effects of chemicals in the environment, such as:
- The Toxic Substances Control Act, which requires EPA to review each and every chemical used in this country and to regulate those that pose an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment.
- The Toxic Release Inventory program, which requires industry to determine and report the release of chemicals deemed to be potentially hazardous to human health and the environment by the EPA.
- National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, which analyzes the risks associated with chemicals released into the air and specifies the control measures that must be used.
- The Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, which requires high volume users of chemicals and other materials to make information about those materials available to the public.
- The Risk Management Planning program, which requires industries that store potentially dangerous chemicals in large quantities to put programs in place to prevent releases and deal with accidents.
I could go on, but you get the idea. If the president’s Cancer Panel wanted to evaluate the risks that chemicals might represent to human health, they could spend the rest of their lives poring over the piles of data that we already have. But, reports like the Cancer Panel’s aren’t really about cancer or even about protecting human health. They’re about giving the Obama administration another excuse to expand the reach of big government even further into our lives.
In this case, even the Times could see at least partially through this latest, laughable effort to accomplish that goal. It’s the silliest example so far of Obama’s “scientific experts” delivering hysteria where hysteria is wanted, but it’s sure to be far from the last.